Talking Points: In defense of Weetabix

Just about every weekday morning, shortly after my arrival here at the office, I eat some Weetabix cereal.
What? You don’t know what Weetabix is? [Here is a picture](http://home.uchicago.edu/~nmchang/Weetabix%204.jpg), then.
I know, it looks kind of like shredded wheat crossed with dried cow patty. In fact, I’d say just about every time a co-worker wanders past while I’m preparing my Weetabix, they smirkingly say something along those very lines. “That looks like a dried cow patty,” they say. Or, “What the hell is *that*? A dried cow patty?” Most of them have never tried Weetabix, and most swear they never will. It seems to be a point of pride with some people, like: “Say what thou wilt, but never shall a foodstuff so visually unappealing be granted passage through the glorious crimson gates of God’s own gift to faces, my lips.”
Well, naysayers, it just so happens Weetabix is among the more popular cereals in the English-speaking world. But don’t take millions of other people’s word for it: Here are *my* 10 rationales for pledging allegiance to these little wheatloafs.
1.) The name: “Weetabix.” It’s the double “e”s that make it the best. Why, it practically begins with the word “whee!”
2.) You can choose what texture you want your Weetabix to be. Pour your milk of choice on *top* of the Weeta-biscuits and it will soak right in — then you can mash them into oatmeal-esque porridge, or spoon off soggy chunks. Pour said milkstuff *around* the biscuits, however, and note how only the edges get damp, while the interior portion remains crispy! This is sensational.
3.) Fortified with vitamins!
4.) Organic!
5.) According to their [website](http://www.weetabix.co.uk/brands/weetabix/weetabix/), each serving of Weetabix contains 537 kilojoules of energy. I bet that’s enough to punch through a wall!
6.) Their website also once proclaimed: “Crammed with all the natural goodness of wholegrain, you can almost taste the long hot summers and gentle spring rain in every bite, resulting in the softest, plumpest grain imaginable.” Doesn’t that sentence just make you want to have sex? Maybe that’s why they erased [almost](http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/food/weetabix-organic/) all trace of it from the internet.
7.) Weetabix is headquartered in the UK and is in fact [“England’s favorite breakfast,”](http://www.weetabix.co.uk/about-us/) so [Jarvis Cocker](http://blog.joewigdahl.com/2009/03/17/jarvis-cocker-eats-chicago/) probably eats it.
8.) The yellow box also gives it a vaguely IKEA-esque Swedish flair that [brightens up your breakfast nook](http://www.losethattyre.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/144134029-9a36a85b141.jpg) and makes you feel cosmopolitan.
9.) Weetabix has an annual “wheat art” contest, [and here is last year’s winner](http://www.weetabix.co.uk/wheatart/images/thumbnails/5.jpg), by a Lincolnshire UK farmer who calls it “Manny The Mammoth And Family.”
10.) Dry, Weetabix actually kind of doesn’t taste like anything, unless you consider crumbling old newsprint as having a “taste.” Thus it is the tabula rasa of cereals. A blank chalkboard upon which to scrawl your own individual gastronomic logarithm. An empty journal yearning only to be filled with one’s florid personal poetry of milks, fruits and sugars. Whee!
(And no: Neither I, the DPD nor APM are on Weetabix’s payroll. I’m just tired of the abuse.)

When I eat Weetabix, or its equivalent, I do indeed generate my own logarithm.
I love that the prose of #6 begins with “Crammed”.

Tim

Dear DPD,
I had just punched through a wall and, having used nearly all of my get up and go, was feeling quite logy and run down. I couldn’t even muster the energy for a brisk web surf. My Weetabix break gave me energy I needed to get back to mindlessly wasting time on sites like this–and then some!
Thanks, Weetabix (and Rico)!

http://www.dinnerpartydownload.com Rico

Yes, Tim; Weetabix are excellent for office drones and wall-demolishing superheroes alike. You know that now, and you’ll never not know it. And for that, you can thank — guess what? — Weetabix.

Ann

Inspired by your post, I picked up a box of Weetabix at Trader Joe’s this afternoon. I have just finished my first bowl, and I must say, it was nearly as good as you described. I have no doubt that by the time I have consumed both “stay fresh sleeves”, I will be a full-fledged Weetabix convert. Thanks for sharing!

http://www.dinnerpartydownload.com Rico

Excellent; one more conscript for the mighty Weetarmada. Tip: the stay-fresh sleeves have about as much inherent flavor as the cereal itself, but they don’t absorb milks/fruits/sweeteners nearly as well.

http://www.gaglianoriff.com frank gagliano

I eat the stuff once, figlio mio. Cow patty? I think not. More like an Armadillo patty. Good show.
The Da.

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